


Follow the North Star

by SupaCutiePatootie (That_Familiar_Feeling)



Category: Old West AU - Fandom, Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other, lots of descriptive that doesn't make sense, suicide warning, word vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 21:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3265118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_Familiar_Feeling/pseuds/SupaCutiePatootie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow the North Star Home<br/>Even if its far you've roam</p><p>Follow its light and heed its guide<br/>and trust it like the horse you ride.</p><p>The North Star Will take you home.</p><p>Even when Heavens the only home you own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow the North Star

The plains hummed,chirped, and howled. Sounds so different to the orchestra that had taken place at dusk. The hot earth swayed now to the silence that accompanied only death.  
If one listened and imagined that they could hear them, the canyon would still be echoing from the gunfire that had taken place just outside of its borders.

The silence was deafening as the moon rose steadily higher. Full and bright, it cast a silver wake into the canyon. A tyrant in the sky that drowned out the other pinpricks of light billions of years into being dead.  
A lone shadow burned by the moons accusing glare rode silently into the shadows of the canyons waning mouth. Hunched over the back of his golden stead. His blue eyes cast silver by the moon.

Behind him the muddled shapes of five more steeds followed, each laden with a precious bundle, one painted colt sporting two.  
They walked through the shadows of the canyon like a parade, each fine steed shivering with unease and fear. The lone man leading them into the heart of the weather worn rock.

As the moon peaked above the oldest and largest oak tree, it's bare branches framing against the sky. The man descended from his stallion, a hole through his side and gnawing through his heart. He threw down the shovel and rope before tying his horse to a sturdy branch. With each bundle he removed from the beasts backs, the hole in his heart grew heavier and the bodies grew heavier. With each laid out he began to unsaddled the horses and send them away.

As the moon burned into his shoulders he began to dig. A grave for each man he called brother and one for the woman that he called sister. He buried the three lovers next to each, one hole for their undying love. He buried the man who had sheltered him. The man who has cared for all of them. And the man he loved.

He buried his family under the rich full moon.

He threw his own grave to the highest branch and watch his executioner sway in the stifled breeze.

He pulled the rope taught his gaze empty and the blood running down his side cold. He was sluggish in unsaddled his horse and climbing onto it bareback. He readied his silver pistol at his side a silver, North Star carved into its oak hilt. The memory faded back to him with a wave of mostly is and guilt...

 

He had been given this gun like the honor it was. He had earned it, earned every right to carve his mark into it. It was redemption, a way out of the lonely life he had sunken into. No longer was he trapped into a debt with bandits who robbed and stole without care. When Geoff offered him a place in the world, he hadn't believed him, he was too clouded then to see just what the gesture meant. 

Geoff had drilled it into him to remember its meaning, their goal and way. He had stood by and watched as Geoff  recited the same speech three more times before the family was complete, and once more when the last member found her place.

_"Its important to remember who we are and how far we've come and that no matter what..."_

"No matter where in this world we are. There will always be something out there to guide the lost. We're that star Ryan, we're here to guide the people and show them the way." Geoff had taken him aside the night he was given the gun, and elbowed him with a cheeky grin a few times,"Doesn't mean of course we can't have our fun. Gotta make a living after all. But were the shepherds, and the people of this godforsaken country our the poor scared lambs. we make the profit off the weaker ones,  and use the others for show." he had an odd way of self righteousness. ryan hadn't exactly disagreed, but he had to admit it was arrogant at times. Hypocrisy...

But that changed when the lads joined their band of merry self righteous entitled bandits... beforehand Jack had been the buffer keeping Geoff in check with his shenanigans. But the night they found Michael, a curly haired spit fire who had as much fire as the ground beneath their feet and a heart as wide as the sky, the way they lived changed.  Michael didn't take an ounce of Geoff's shit and called him out on what he had fucked up. It didn't take long after that for Geoff to bring Michael in on their close knit group, far different than the larger network. 

_"The North star will guide us..."_

First it was Michael, then it was Ray. A Puerto Rican raised poor New Yorker turned Mexican rebel.  An old friend of Michael's who had reached out for some aid after having an unfortunate run in with the Mexican Government. Something about bombing every railroad track of the Mexican border...

Either way they wound up helping in the revolution, saving a few people, and forming a bond underneath that endless sky. After the war and before Geoff officially asked Ray to join their posse, ray had suggested taking some horses out and seeing something incredibly rare and special. Jack had politely refused nursing a wound and Michael had already seen this so called'once in a lifetime' event. Geoff just shrugged and waved a hand claiming he had other important things to do. 

So it was just Ryan and Ray riding out on to the top of one of the large mesas, just as the moon peaked and the sky opened up. Ryan had heard of comets and other such celestial oddities but had never seen it happened before. Ray had smiled and hitched the horses up to a small brush of a tree and quietly explained that the last time he had since was with Michael, the first time he had ever been to Mexico, the last time he had actually seen the other. 

It wasn't the first time Ray had left him awestruck... and every other memory left the hole in him even more gaping. Every soft word and softer touch. ray wasn't like Michael, wasn't like the land they stood upon. He wasn't innocent, but he still smiled like he had all the time in the world _to_ smile. After a while, they all started to smile like they had time.

_"And no matter where we are, together or apart we'll find each other again.."_

Gavin had been a surprise. Geoff had been asked a favor from his old posse member Burnie about taking some precious cargo from one coast to the next. Some rich British kid who had been forced to travel west with his brother in hopes of finding their fathers precious oil. Longer story short the brother was shot and the deed for the oil rigs stolen off his warm body. Gavin had fled to the nearest city and had been hiding out their, fearful for his life when he got word of an ex-lawman with a few connections that might just save him for the right price. 

That price was two oil deeds, one for Burnie and one for Geoff. The first night they had camped up not even half way out of the county, Gavin had been quiet keeping to himself and staying close to the covered wagon. Mile by mile though he started to open up with the right coaxing and prodding. It was michael who got the real breakthrough with throwing a dead snake the brits way sending him flailing and squawking. Everyone started cackling and Gavin had pouted for hours suddenly very determined to make Michael's life a living hell with random and almost invasive questions and clinginess. 

Which turned out good for all them after it saved his life. It happened so quickly that no one really remembered how it happened, one second the surrounding area was quiet and humming with humid after rain life. The next buckshot were being fired into the side of the wagon where Gavin should have been. it was a flurry of gunfire and yelling before all the bandits were down and the small posse regrouped. 

They had been stopped by a stream, letting the horses take a break and stretching their tired limbs. Michael had insisted on trying his luck with some hunting, in turn Gavin had insisted on following him. So everyone made it out alive if not a bit shaken up. Michael and Geoff hadn't dared let Gavin out of their sight since that incident. Days rolled on and soon they made it to the train station that would carry Gavin away to New York, and then to a ship that was to set sail back to his motherland. The goodbye was needless to say a bit teary eyed.  Geoff had a bad habit of forming fatherly attachments, especially to those who genuinely acted like kids, Jack had found a good match when it came to judging literature and other things the more ruff and tuff of the group couldn't be bothered really learning. Ryan just found his innocence musing. It was Ray and undoubtedly Michael that took it hard. The three had formed a close brotherly bond, and for two it almost seemed perfectly synced... but Gavin did get on that train and did leave, and he was gone for years.

_"No matter where we had been when lost, or who else we found along the way"_

it wasn't until the gang had met up with Lindsey, and subsequently after Lindsey and Michael had formed a close bond, that Gavin showed up again.  It was pitiful how he re -entered their lives. Broken and penniless Gavin had come back to america with the hopes of maybe finding the gang again. his father had lost it all and drunk himself to death on whatever coin he had left. Geoff was all to willing to pull Gavin under his wing and help the younger back onto his feet. 

The tension between Michael, Gavin, and Lindsey was almost unbearable. while Geoff and Jack treated him like their own, and Ray like a brother he had lost, Michael had a sour spot with the Brit. No one doubted that it had everything to do with their tearful goodbye years before. And now that Lindsey was there things got complicated...

Or so it had seemed.

Somehow they managed to fit, falling into a place like puzzle pieces to a much bigger puzzle. The three of them soon becoming infamously known as "The Lovers", always pulling some form of mischief whenever they had the free time to blow shit up.

_"The North Star will guide us home"_

Home...was a small ranch in the middle of the plains. Bordered by river and pines and sheltered with oaks. It was always busy, coming and going with business partners and smaller gang members that came to update Geoff on matters of the country. 

Home was filled with petty arguments about who gets to name the new colt, or who got to keep watch when they were moving cattle. Tending to sore egos and broken skin whenever a deal or some other form of power play went awry. 

Home was a warm fire and a good laugh with the people you love most. lovers and Fathers, Friends...family...

It wasn't home if he didn't have his family.

 

Ryan raised the gun above his head, loosened his grip on his steeds mane and relaxed. Hot tears streaming down his dirty and bloody face. The rope against his throat only made his heart hurt more.

He was a coward. And he was alone.

He had made a vow when he took that gun, just as the others had. That no matter what they would always come home.

He looked up and found it, the only star that could withstand the full intensity of the full moon. His eyes and side burned, the wind whistling through the canyon slowly. 

He whispered, desperate and tired, his body and mind to broken to react properly. "Please.." he cried to the North Star, "Please...take me home..."

 

The shot went off like lighting. A crack ripped through the quiet canyon, followed by the fearful cries of the horse as it took off from underneath its rider. 

Moments later when the pain faded and the gun had slipped from his grasp, Ryan was still looking up as the sky blurred and began to fade. The only thing he could focus on was that star and the same thought. 

_The North Star will guide me home_

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a short short story for class that I really had to elaborate on.  
> It got sad and sadder and I cried a little. 
> 
> But I just couldn't let it go man...just couldn't..
> 
> I got super tired near the end and if its bad please tell me and maybe give suggestions as to a better more clean and smoother ending.


End file.
